Happy Birthday to me!

From my old blog:

This being my birthday and all, I decided to make it my first blog entry as well. I plan to add frequently, but who’m I kidding? With the amount of writing projects I’ve got open all at the same time, I can’t promise which will get the attention when…this being my latest and hopefully longest lasting project!

As of today, my 30th birthday, my writing plate holds many titles. I write with Jennifer Martin as Ashleigh Raine and obviously as Rina Slayter even though my name is actually Lisa Stoddard. I think my plan is to just thorougly confuse myself while at conventions when people are using all of my names at the same time. Otherwise, I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment.

Anyhow, with Jen as Ashleigh Raine, we are currently in progress on 2 projects. For simplicity’s sake, that’s ET and DTD. As Rina Slayter, I’m currently working on BR and OR. More details will be revealed later. At the moment, I’m just getting this blog up and running.

It’s all good, though. I’ve got lots planned. I’m a founding member of the Fictionados (Southern California’s only genre fiction writing group) as well as a Background acting SAG member. In other wor

Clubhouse

The following is an excerpt from an email I’d sent shortly after this shoot:

I was on a new TV show called Clubhouse. I don’t know all the stars, but the two principle boys were Jeremy Sumpter and Dan Byrd.

Getting to the parking lot was kind of fun. It was in the upper 90s, so I wimped out and brought my air-conditioned Prowler. As I pulled in, somehow, it was a high-end Plymouth/Chrysler/Dodge convention among all the production cars. Not only was I there with my Prowler, but there was also a Crossfire and a Viper! I knew I’d be in for an interesting time.

The crew was actually running late and we ended up chasing daylight. The scene was New York street where Van Nuys Boulevard somehow doubled for New York.

I was supposed to be an art vendor, but that didn’t pan out and I just ended up as regular walking-through-frame background. I wore my New York artsy hottest clothes, thinking that wardrobe would make me change, but she didn’t. She loved what I was wearing. In the end, I was almost bummed because with the intense heat and my 100% spandex and polyester, I baked. Oh well. At least I looked good and only got one blister on my heel.

There were two scenes. One where the kid buys the necklace, the other when he sells it back after dark. But because they were running late, they’d had to use high-powered lights to fill in sunlight. Boy, did my sunglasses come in handy. Up close, them lights feel brighter than the sun!

For some reason, there were a lot of newbie background actors on this call. It was fun to remember back to when I had no idea how to “go on action, banana around left, bear right along a line, then diagonal out of frame.” Reminiscing was great. And between takes, I got to work on notes for Eternal Talisman.

As the crew was setting up the second scene, I was outside calling Jason, asking if he still had some steak left to barbecue for dinner whenever I got out of there. Just as I was about to go back into a beauty salon that was doubling as extras holding, the rest of the extras were hurrying out. The set medic rushed in, followed by a few more people with big orange plastic toolboxes.

I found out a couple minutes later that a guy had a seizure, but was okay. Then the crew started scurrying faster because they wanted to get another shot done before the ambulances came. We were delayed only about 20 minutes by the ambulance and firetruck sirens and lights. The guy was fine, but as far as I can tell, standard procedure is to give him a ride to the hospital. I learned that on a different set.

Yep, this wasn’t the first time I was on a set where an extra had a seizure. Last time, it was Navy NCIS and it was a woman. Her seizure happened before anything got going, though. It was just strange to hear sirens and see the ambulance coming…then stop right in the middle of all the production trucks and equipment. Bizarre. I’m just glad that in both cases, everything turned out okay. I’ve even seen that lady on another set since then, so she must be doing fine.

After all that, it was business as usual. I “went straight, banana-ed right, went for the tree, then followed that line all the way out of frame” about a million more times, taking care that when I passed the garbage can, I always pulled my bag from my right shoulder, lowered it and carried it in my left hand, not by the bag’s strap. Yeah…that was my little bit of business just to keep myself interested in working once I’d finished with the Eternal Talisman notes.

I have no idea when this show aired or if I was even in it after all. I did have a great time, though. Even now, I’m thinking that there’s got to be a place in a book for “go on action, banana around left, bear right along a line, then diagonal out of frame.” There’s just got to be.

Hmmm…maybe a few books down the road.